Ah, yet another book start I dredged up, in which I put forth a slacker anti-hero, who opens a diary debating meaning of it all: from honor and duty and, most importantly, putting one's socks on in a timely manner.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2005
Oh, the Grind
Shall I do this daily?, he asked, wondering if diaries require the same devotion as an aging mistress. Well, I'll give it a run. However, be forewarned I'm extremely bad at comittment. You may be at the start of a story without an end. Amen.
You see, the older I get, the worst my devotion to duty seems to become. I'm quite content to "pass the buck" at work. I let licenses and electric bills lapse; I've never been able to follow a "mail-in rebate" to conclusion. I recently stopped putting shoelaces in my wingtips because they become untied during the day and I don't want to be committed to keeping them neat. Yes, people look, but I tell myself I'm flirting with being "an eccentric" -- like the aging professor, a mind busy calculating grander things like star clusters over the horizon, than tomato catsup on trouser pleats. I do work within the magnificent 200-year old stone walls of an ivy-enshrined university, birthing place of Presidents and assasins, and my father was a professor, of sorts, but, closer to the truth, I'm simply almost completely unreliable and unfocused.
Some say this state is what, sadly, happens to retirees no longer saddled with responsibilty. While still a few decades away, I'm absolutely ready to embrace that manner of being. The chance to let my brain turn to Hawaiian poi watching television while mass-consuming spearmint Altoids sounds blissful. Look to the lillies - those bastards have it just peachy in my book.
I now feel like I've shouldered a responsibility launching this diary and, God knows, I avoid that like the plague. I won't try and offer myself up as a romantic Tom Sawyer, shirking duty in the name of free-range mischief. He had the energy of a ten-year-old, whereas I once took 23 minutes to put my socks on (my wife timed me without my knowledge, and I'm told the first sock took eighteen of those minutes). Anyway, I doubt I would have enjoyed life along the Mississippi in 1876, even if life was simpler then. There were chores like 'toting buckets' and pressing calico with wood-fire headed irons. Yes, much too much work. But, today, there's no peace at all. We're all victims of someone's ledger or telephone directory. It's a different manner of 'chores'. It's our responsibility to someone named 'Mr. Torres at Service Electric Cable." At least you could hide from Aunt Polly.
You see, the older I get, the worst my devotion to duty seems to become. I'm quite content to "pass the buck" at work. I let licenses and electric bills lapse; I've never been able to follow a "mail-in rebate" to conclusion. I recently stopped putting shoelaces in my wingtips because they become untied during the day and I don't want to be committed to keeping them neat. Yes, people look, but I tell myself I'm flirting with being "an eccentric" -- like the aging professor, a mind busy calculating grander things like star clusters over the horizon, than tomato catsup on trouser pleats. I do work within the magnificent 200-year old stone walls of an ivy-enshrined university, birthing place of Presidents and assasins, and my father was a professor, of sorts, but, closer to the truth, I'm simply almost completely unreliable and unfocused.
Some say this state is what, sadly, happens to retirees no longer saddled with responsibilty. While still a few decades away, I'm absolutely ready to embrace that manner of being. The chance to let my brain turn to Hawaiian poi watching television while mass-consuming spearmint Altoids sounds blissful. Look to the lillies - those bastards have it just peachy in my book.
I now feel like I've shouldered a responsibility launching this diary and, God knows, I avoid that like the plague. I won't try and offer myself up as a romantic Tom Sawyer, shirking duty in the name of free-range mischief. He had the energy of a ten-year-old, whereas I once took 23 minutes to put my socks on (my wife timed me without my knowledge, and I'm told the first sock took eighteen of those minutes). Anyway, I doubt I would have enjoyed life along the Mississippi in 1876, even if life was simpler then. There were chores like 'toting buckets' and pressing calico with wood-fire headed irons. Yes, much too much work. But, today, there's no peace at all. We're all victims of someone's ledger or telephone directory. It's a different manner of 'chores'. It's our responsibility to someone named 'Mr. Torres at Service Electric Cable." At least you could hide from Aunt Polly.
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